Griffin Paulson is ranked as the seventh-best slopestyle mountain biker in the world.
Just turned 25, this is his second year competing as a freerider at the highest level on the international circuits.
But if you ask the average Joe in Prince George, Paulson’s hometown, chances are not many people know who he is or are aware of the amazing tricks he’s capable of pulling off on his bike.
He thinks nothing of launching himself 30 feet in the air to pull off a ‘Look Ma, no hands,’ leap or going head over heels in front flip that has him taking both hands off the bars. He gets enough hangtime to pull off 360 triple tailwhips – three complete horizontal rotations of his bike with his feet off the pedals – and land safely. That takes guts and an incredible amount of practice to do that safely in front of crowd with the pressure on, but that’s exactly what Paulson did last month on the Crankworx World Tour in Innsbruck, Austria.
As the only Canadian slopestyle rider qualified, Paulson finished 10th out of 14 athletes at the tour event on June 18th. He crashed in his first run but escaped unhurt and went on to pull off a near-perfect second run.
“Canada actually has a really strong background of having some of the top slopestyle riders, freeriding was kind of born in Kamloops,” said Paulson. “Getting into Crankworx and being on these courses that I’ve seen online and the replays for years and dreamt about riding is so incredible. It’s always something I’ve wanted to since I was young and I’m definitely proud to be the only Canadian, one of two North Americans. All the rest are European guys out there.”
Paulson competed last year at a Gold Level event in Poland and finished fifth behind four riders already qualified for the Diamond Level and that opened the door for him to take on the best riders in the world. In his first world championship event he just missed the podium last summer at Crankworx at Silver Star Mountain Resort near Vernon, finishing a career-best fourth, and he went on to place fifth in November at Crankworx in Rotorua, New Zealand. In both of those events he was the only rider with a Canadian passport.
“That was so awesome to have the first Crankworx event in Canada and right at Silver Star, where I’d been there skiing as a kid,” he said. “I got fourth place on the first run of the day and got some pretty good cheers from the crowd. That really helped me stack up points.”
Paulson started riding on his family’s property southwest of Prince George at West Lake, where he and his father Grant have built a world-class training facility. He showed he had no fear of flying as a young kid taking off foot-high jumps built on dirt trails or launching himself into a flip off the end of the dock off a sheet of plywood stacked on tires into the lake. He now has an airbag made of material that allows the bike to slide and he uses that to develop his latest mind-blowing stunt. The Paulsons live on the south end of West Lake, on the opposite end of the public beach, and sometimes people in boats will stop to gawk at his training runs.
Paulson started competing in Red Bull events in Europe when he was 16. His next competition is July 28-31 at Silver Star Bike Park, site of the Crankworx Summer Series Gold Level slopestyle event, part of the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour. Another Gold Level event is set for Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna, Aug. 4-6. That will set the stage for biggest slopestyle event of the year, on Aug. 13 – Red Bull Joy Ride – one of the highlights of the Crankworx Whistler Mountain Bike Festival.
“The event is Whistler is the biggest event in mountain biking, the one that’s the most prestigious and everyone want to get into,” said Paulson. “I’ve watched it live every year forth past 10 years but I’ve never been in it.”
Also on the horizon for Paulson is the Red Bull District Ride Sept. 2-3 in Nuremberg, Germany. The course will be set up in a large public square utilizing the roof of a building to create 60-foot drop-in ramp that leads into other jump features that follow the cobble-stoned streets in front of 80,000 spectators. It will be streamed live on Red Bull TV. With more women’s getting involved in mountain bike slopestyle, there’s a push to make it an Olympic event and Paulson hopes that day will come before the end of his competitive career.
COVID put the clamps on all competitions for nearly two years and to help raise his own profile with the world governing body for the sport and qualify for the Diamond Level events, Paulson hired a 6ix Sigma Productions film crew to create a video of some of his practice runs. Shot at his home course at West Lake, it demonstrates some of the cutting-edge world-first tricks he can now pull off as a freeride daredevil.
You can watch him execute a double backflip made more difficult with a handlebar spin before his momentum caries him into the second flip.
Paulson grew up an athlete and played Tier 1 rep hockey in Prince George as a forward until he was 15. He lived in Penticton for his Grade 8 and 9 years to attend the Okanagan Hockey Academy, which stressed the importance of nutrition, mental preparation/visualization, dryland/gym training, stretching and warming up became ingrained and he uses what he learned as a hockey player to prepare himself for mountain bike competitions.
During the cold-weather months Paulson lives and trains at indoor bike/skate park Maple Ridge, where he’s spent the past two winters. The jumps are much smaller than the wide-open leaps he was used to at West Lake and that’s helped Paulson significantly improve his technical skills.
“I was kind of lacking in some of those skatepark skills where you have to be a little more exact and I know going there the last two winters absolutely blew up my technical ability and how quick and dialed I was,” he said.
Paulson wears padded gear and has learned how to absorb a fall by staying flexible and rolling on impact, similar to what stuntmen or professional wrestlers have to learn to prevent getting hurt. He’s had to deal with several riding-related injuries over the years – three broken collarbones, broken hand, broken wrist, and an ACL knee injury.
Despite the risk, Grant Paulson says it’s gotten easier over the years watching his son do things parents don’t like to see their kids attempt on a bike.
“It was always nervewracking at the start but you get used to it, it’s still nervewracking but you get used to is,” said Grant. “Injuries are a big part of it, always in the back of your mind. That training facility we have out at the lake is a world-class site and you see him doit every day and you sort of lose perspective. Then you go to some of these big competitions and you really appreciate how well he does and what we have out there. You sort of get blinded because you’re so used to it.”
You can follow Paulson's progress and watch his competition highlights on Instagram @GriffinPaulson.
